Veteran Memoir

On November 18, 1967, Private First Class Davis' artillery unit was hit by a massive enemy offensive. At 21 years old, he resolved to face the onslaught and prepared to die. Soon he would have a perforated kidney, crushed ribs, a broken vertebra, his flesh ripped by beehive darts, a bullet in his thigh, and burns all over his body. Ignoring his injuries, he manned a two-ton Howitzer by himself, crossed a canal under heavy fire to rescue three wounded American soldiers, and kept fighting until the enemy retreated.

According to Doss's account in a documentary film titled The Contentious Objector, as he rescued soldiers one-by-one, he breathed into the air with each go-around, "Lord, please help me get one more". The modest man of faith claims to have saved 50 wounded soldiers from certain death. His comrades claim that he saved 100. President Harry S. Truman presented him with the Congressional Medal of Honor upon his return to the United States, for his heroics on Okinawa, and the citation credits him with saving 75 lives, splitting the difference.

Escaping certain death, not once but several times, lies at the core of this riveting, real-life story of an American soldier during World War II. In One Man's War: The WW II Saga of Tommy LaMore, a B-17 airman vividly details his experiences in war-ravaged Europe, from the horrific to the romantic and beyond.

Ross Kemp has encountered conflict and warfare the world over, broadcasting from some of the most volatile military hot-zones. From meeting the world's deadliest gangsters, to perhaps his hardest assignment of all; embedded with the British Army in Afghanistan’s Helmand province, where he witnessed some of the fiercest fighting of the conflict and was trained in the tactics they use to stay alive.

Michael Lee Lanning's journal of his first tour of duty in Vietnam provides an unvarnished daily account of life in the field. The blood, fear, camaraderie, and tedium of combat and maneuver. Fleshed out with narrative and detail years later, the pages of this memorable book, first published in 1987, show an eager young recruit growing before the reader's eyes into a proud but bloodied combat veteran. Subsequent volumes in his Vietnam Trilogy will detail Lanning's tour as a company commander and his post-war investigation into the mind of the enemy.

On April 12, 1945, a fleet of American B-29 bombers flew toward Japan. Their mission was simple: Stop World War II by burning the cities, factories, and military bases of the Japanese em­pire, thereby forcing an unconditional surrender. But it didn't go as planned. Onboard one of the B-29s, the City of Los Angeles, a phosphorus bomb detonated inside the plane. Staff Sergeant Henry E. "Red" Erwin absorbed the blast of burning phosphorus and managed to throw the still-flaming bomb overboard be­fore collapsing from the third-degree burns that covered his body.

In the vein of Band of Brothers and American Sniper, a riveting history of Alvin York, the World War I legend who killed two dozen Germans and captured more than 100, detailing York's heroics yet also restoring the unsung heroes of his patrol to their rightful place in history - from renowned World War I historian James Carl Nelson.

On Easter morning, 1972, Marine captain John Ripley braved intense enemy fire to blow up a bridge during the North Vietnamese "Easter Offensive." Ripley became a legend within the Marine Corps for his daring act of heroism. His story is described here by fellow Marine John Grider Miller. Miller lays bare Ripley's innermost thoughts during the 3 hours it took to place and set the fuses while some 30,000 enemy troops and 200 tanks prepared to cross just yards away. Such a compelling act of raw courage and personal resolve is rarely encountered.

Army First Lieutenant Jack Jacobs was serving as an advisor to the South Vietnamese when he and his men came under devastating attack. Severely wounded, Jacobs took command and withdrew the unit, returning again and again to the site of the attack to rescue more men, saving the lives of a U.S advisor and thirteen Allied soldiers. Colonel Jacobs received the nation's highest military award, the Medal of Honor.

Terry McGowan had been a beat cop, a marine captain, and a special agent for the FBI before retiring at the age of 50. But when tragedy struck the United States on September 11, 2001, Terry felt an undiminished sense of duty to protect and serve his country. Six years later he was in Iraq as a member of a team of high-ranking retired and active-duty military working for the highest level of marine military intelligence. His success in Iraq led to a position as a law enforcement professional with the marines in Afghanistan.

Bob Kerrey grew up outside Lincoln, Nebraska, in the 1950s, and in his trademark style - serious, sometimes wry - he tells of his journey from that heartland to the dangers of Vietnam, to the hospitals where he recovered from his grievous injuries, and finally to the Nixon White House where he was awarded the Medal of Honor.

In The Sailor’s Compass, listeners are invited to chart the remarkable journey of Michael Moore—a dedicated hospital corpsman whose life reflects courage, sacrifice, and resilience. From his modest beginnings in a small-town community where hard work and family values were paramount, to his transformative years serving in the Navy during the Vietnam War, Michael’s story is one of unwavering dedication and grit.

On November 25, 1950, during one of the toughest battles of the Korean War, the US Eighth Army Ranger Company seized and held the strategically important Hill 205 overlooking the Chongchon River. Separated by more than a mile from the nearest friendly unit, 51 soldiers fought several hundred Chinese attackers. Their commander, Lieutenant Ralph Puckett, was wounded three times before he was evacuated. For his actions, he received the country's second-highest award for courage on the battlefield and resumed active duty later that year as a living legend.

"Jim, why don't you apply to become an FBI agent?" Those words, said to me while serving as a young police officer in the spring of 1969 by my chief of police Perry Larson in River Falls, Wisconsin, started my journey. "Me, an FBI agent?" I always thought them to be, if I thought of it at all, some nebulous characters from New York or Chicago. They certainly weren't farm kids from central Wisconsin. This began an amazing 28-year journey and love affair with the greatest law enforcement agency in our country, the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It was beyond my wildest dreams.

Victory and defeat, love and loss are the prevalent realities of Letters from the Greatest Generation, a remarkable and frank collection of World War II letters penned by American men and women serving overseas. Here, the hopes and dreams of the greatest generation fill each minute, and their voices ring loud and clear. "It's all part of the game. But it's bloody and rough," wrote one soldier to his wife. "Wearing two stripes now and proud as an old cat with five kittens," marked another.

In this gorgeous memoir that moves from Jon Kerstetter's impoverished upbringing on an Oneida reservation, to his harrowing stints as a volunteer medic in Kosovo and Bosnia, through the madness of Iraq and his intense mandate to assemble a team to identify the remains of Uday and Qusay Hussein, and the struggle afterward to come to terms with a life irrevocably changed, Kerstetter beautifully illuminates war and survival, the fragility of the human body, and the strength of will that lies within.

Their stories needed to be told. And classmates working together, under a blanket of trust and friendship, was the only way to allow people to open up. It was a three year journey into the hearts and souls of America's youngest heroes to gather these important historical accounts, but it was worth every hour spent. Inside this book are the voices the first Annapolis graduates into a decade of war and they remind us that America is in good hands. They were walking to class on 9/11, wearing Naval Academy summer working blues, when the towers were struck.

Falling to Grace – A Powerful Journey from Brokenness to Purpose What if the lowest point in your life was the very place you were meant to rise from? Falling to Grace is a deeply personal and inspiring testimony of transformation, redemption, and faith. From a strict and conflicted childhood to serving in the U.S. Navy, from becoming a bestselling science fiction author to finally stepping into true identity, this memoir traces a remarkable path of struggle, discovery, and healing. Told with raw honesty and heartfelt conviction, this is the story of a life that seemed to fall apart—...

After he was selected to be NATO's 16th Supreme Allied Commander, the New York Times described Jim Stavridis as a "Renaissance admiral." A US Naval Academy graduate with a master's degree and doctorate from Tufts University, conversant in both French and Spanish, this author of numerous books and articles impressed the Navy's leaders and senior Pentagon civilians. The Accidental Admiral offers an intimate look at the challenges of directing NATO operations in Afghanistan, military intervention in Libya, and preparation for possible war in Syria.

In crisp prose and sharp detail, Darling offers a moment-by-moment account of a one-day mission to track down and kill Taliban insurgents in the Zabul Province of southeastern Afghanistan. A rare day-in-the-life narrative that captures the mundane realities of deployment - the waiting, the heat, the heavy gear, the 0345 wake-up - along with the high-octane experience of crossing foreign terrain where every turn, every decision might have life or death consequences.